When i am outside of work, i refuse to "act like a nurse." im going to be ME outside of work. and ME is talking to people who understand. Nobody knows who i am. Who the hell knows, my name may not even be Jenni. Maybe i am a male nurse named Butch...how would you know??
Oh wait, you don't know.

If you walk into the interview, and the chair is in front of the desk, facing the interviewer, just drag the chair around her desk so you two can sit next to each other. I'm sure that would go over well.

Um, this article seems a bit over the top to me. Medical professionals are predatory, smell blood, etc.? I've been a nurse for over twenty years. That is way over the top.

As many other posters have said, the way you precept, and your attitude, your leadership style may be a great match for some orientees.

But not for me.

I don't think anyone needs to be "broken down" in order to reach their full potential.

And it's kind of condescending to think all new nurses need to be petted and coddled, and it is your job to toughen them up and show them how the real world is.

I, and many others, were well equipped with enough innate intelligence that we already possessed some pretty good critical thinking skills before we ever even started nursing school, and also realize we have an intrinsic responsibility for our own professional growth and development.

I look at new grads and nursing students as colleagues. I do not try to intimidate them. I get to know them as a person on some level; i.e., ask them when they are graduating, their future career goals, etc. I respect them, and they respect me. I freely tell them everything I know. I assure them there are no stupid questions. That knowing what one does not know is a cornerstone of safe practice.

Positive, healthy interactions with all coworkers go a long way in making tough shifts bearable, even enjoyable.

Support, teamwork, respect, sharing of knowledge, modeling leadership, and yes, KINDNESS. Despite whatever else is going on in my personal or work life.

So I don't worry about my orientees speaking about their experience with me as a preceptor with other staff.

I agree. I had a clinical instructor who broke and failed me and guess what? It made me hate her even more. She was a complete, wicked witch. My next clinical instructor was very sweethearted and I found that I was more open to her constructive criticism than my former instructor tearing me apart and making me feel like absolute **** about myself. Breaking the hardworker's spirit is just not cool in my book and it fits the stereotype of nurses eating their young to the fullest.

Some nurses have a complex and feel that they must be "big and bad" to the newbies. If that isn't a way to chase off some good students...

Anyone who has ever reared a child or trained a dog understands that kindness works better than the hostility and anger you seem to value. I have mentored using kindness and I can assure you, the preceptee is educated BETTER than when having been beaten over the head with a stick. No, I don't discuss recipes or go for drinks, I am just plain kind to the learner.

When my plate is full: Job, school, work I set aside a 30 min hard workout to help work off steam. Even if you just walk for 30 min you can listen to vocab recording for school. Helps me feel double productive!

It can be done:

Add veggies
Drink water
1 Cup of coffee a day
take the stairs
add fruit
If you have a day off do Yoga!
Drink more water
Vending machine are evil ( it may be hard but stay away)
Plan, Plan Plan ( I save money by bring snacks to work and school)
Drink water

Smile No regrets, if you have an off day or meal acknowlege it then move on.

Using soapy washcloths to perform incontinent care is perfectly legal.

As long as the washcloths are being laundered, I see no problem with this practice. 30 minutes of high heat in a clothes dryer is enough to kill virtually any microbes, even the ones that exist in fecal matter.

If your question is, do they let you make your own hours for clinical, the answer is a definitive no.

Your faculty has to be there when you are there, and they aren't going to be working extra hours because you can't get to work.

Yes, work-- because one of the objectives of clinical time is to socialize students into the world of work in hospitals (and you thought it was just to teach you how to give shots and sink NG tubes and do other tasks, right?). A huge part of that is getting to work on time, because the nurse on the shift before you is entitled to leave on time. This is practice for that.

PA's are trained to think like doctors; NP's think like nurses. Huge difference in where they are coming from when they approach a situation that needs a resolution.

After 9 years of my husband being treated ineffectively for rheumatoid arthritis and seemingly regarded as an insurance money pinata (prescribed designer drugs that don't work, getting a new ankle brace each year, steroid shots that don't last more than 2 weeks, surgical consults, x-rays and MRI's) we realized that he will probably never be "cured", and since the meds have not put him in any sort of remission, he needs help to maintain the mobility he still has while coping with the pain. The doctors never seemed to address that issue. So we made an appt with our PCP's NP and just today he was finally prescribed a quad cane, PT/OT including aqua therapy, a handicapped parking placard, ordered a DEXA scan to check for osteoperosis d/t 9 years of oral steroids, and she also called all the doctors involved in his care that never communicate (rheumatologist, orthopedist, and pain management "specialist") and got them all on the same page. Some meds were d/c'ed, others added. She accomplished all this on one day. And I knew how she did it: she listened to my husband and me, reviewed all the notes that had been sent over from these doctors in the last year or so, and formulated a care plan in her head. Just like that. I told her right at the start of our meeting: "I'm done with these doctors. He needs someone who thinks like a NURSE who will treat him as a person, not a dx!"

I dont know about y'all, but when the S*&% hits the fan on the floor, and you need your best, I usually look to that old school diploma RN and follow her lead WAYYYY before I even consider the one with all those fancy letters behind her name....
Just my observation....

Well, at least 'round mah parts, the only diploma educated nurses working in hospitals are nurses who were initially licensed 20-30+ years ago.

I, too, would look towards nurses who have been in nursing for longer than I've been alive for guidance and advice.

We had to do the reasons behind why each test was ordered and the nursing considerations also. I spent a weekend going through each and every lab test imaginable listing by CBC, BMP, LFT ect and did a really good rationale as to why those tests are ordered, what considerations were needed and so on. Then when I would have to do my clinical prep work I had most of the hard labor completed, and I just had to personalize it for each patient. We had to do this on 2 patients....bleh it was awful. Do you have to do a medication sheet for each and every medication? We used to, and sometimes these patients on med-surg would have 40 medications. I made a list of all the common medications and made sheets for them and saved them individually in a pdf file listed by drug name. I would add medications as needed when I would come across one that I didnt have stored in the computer. I would do the same thing and personalize it for each patient. This really cut down on my prep time. By the end of nursing school I had hundreds of medication files and lab work definitions/rationales.

I made a binder and I printed out the list of lab tests, the reasons they are typically ordered and also printed out a spread sheet with common medications and brought it to clinic. I also had copies of the skills we were resonsible for that listed step by step preparations. When I had an NG tube to insert, I would simply look over "how to insert an NG tube" an I always felt prepared. These things that I did took a lot of time and effort, but they were such a big help and time saver that I thought I would share with you.

Good luck, its been a while since nursing school but the thought of those 2AM mornings before clinic still give me heartburn.

Also: I forgot to add that I also had a sheet in my brain binder that listed all normal values for lab test, therapeutic drug levels, ABG's, vital signs ect